


Everything Changes

by TeaRoses



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 03:56:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/630120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaRoses/pseuds/TeaRoses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roku knows when it's time to let go.  Sozin doesn't.</p>
<p>Originally written for "Avatar Flash Fic" on LiveJournal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Changes

“You always said that on your eighteenth birthday we would hunt for dragons.”

Sozin looked at him angrily. “You are three months too late for my eighteenth birthday, Roku.”

Roku was smiling. “Being the Avatar keeps me busier than you might think. I sent you birthday greetings. And unless you are hiding a dragon very well, you did not go hunting without me.”

“No,” said Sozin.

Roku stepped forward and embraced him. “Come, friend. Stop sulking.”

Sozin finally smiled. “Very well. I’ll have the servants pack supplies for us.”

They traveled to the mountains on the back of a sky bison, guided by a young woman who seemed less than awed even though she was transporting both the Avatar and Fire Nation royalty. 

“Perhaps you should have a sky bison of your own, Roku,” said Sozin. “You’re an airbender now.”

The air nomad woman interrupted. “We receive our bison when we are young, in the air temples. And they are ours for life.”

“Would you deny something to the Avatar?” snapped Sozin. 

“No,” she replied, “but neither would he ask such a thing.”

“I think I know the Avatar better than you do,” said Sozin. “And you treat both of us with too little respect.”

Roku punched him playfully on the arm. “Leave her alone. We’re going to fly on dragons after this.”

When they arrived at their destination, it was already the middle of the day. They set up a rudimentary camp and shared a quick meal. Sozin began to relax, telling over a few of the current scandals of the Fire Nation court.

“You don’t mean that Lord Wen’s son isn’t really his?” asked Roku incredulously.

“They say the boy bears a strong resemblance to my beloved cousin,” said Sozin with a small smile. “He always lacked self-control.”

“And you? Have you fathered any mysterious children?”

“You know me better than that,” replied Sozin mildly.

“They must be after you to marry,” said Roku.

“I will marry soon enough.”

After their lunch they walked into the foothills, and Sozin detected the wing beats of dragons. He took off running into a small wooded valley with Roku at his heels, but soon told him, “No. Each man catches his own dragon.”

Once Roku was gone Sozin ran forward and saw the dragon over the trees – a giant blue beast which flew over him as if it couldn’t be bothered with a man. Sozin sent up a fire blast which reached its belly, and finally it turned and looked at him.

Running into a clearing, he sent stream after stream of fire toward the dragon’s head. It flew down toward him, returning his fire and snapping its jaws. It was almost impossible for one person to defeat a dragon, but if Sozin put up enough of a challenge this one might agree to be tamed.

He was an expert at dodging fire, and an even better firebender than his friend the Avatar. After a few exchanges of flame the dragon grew closer and attempted to hit him with its wings. That was when he took the chain he had prepared and threw it over its head. It could break the chain, and they both knew it, but after staring Sozin in the eye for a moment it calmed itself. When he led his new capture out of the valley, Roku was waiting for him with a red dragon at his side. 

Sozin raised his eyebrows. “You had luck as well, my friend?”

“You expected me to fail?” 

“No,” Sozin said. “Was it a difficult fight?”

“We didn’t need to fight. Fang seems to have agreed to join me.” The dragon only snorted but Roku laughed.

“You named it already?”

“Well, I’m sure that’s not her real name, but Fang will do as a Fire Nation name.”

“How could you know what her real name is in any case?” asked Sozin.

“I don’t… but she’s hundreds of years old, I can tell you that. I’m sure she has a name and a history. Just imagine what she has seen.”

“The mysticism of the Avatar,” Sozin muttered.

“We are going to spend the night here, even though we found our dragons, right?” Roku asked as they approached the camp.

Sozin smiled. “Certainly.”

After dinner, the dragons closed their eyes to sleep, and Roku turned to Sozin and held out him arms. Sozin had been worried that this would have changed too, but Roku felt almost the same – the warmth of his kisses, the smoothness of his skin. He passed his hands through Roku’s hair, ran his lips down his neck. And Roku responded in the ways he remembered, moving against him, pressing their bodies together. For one moment it was all perfect again. They did not speak. Sozin fell asleep next to Roku and woke deep in the night, the dragons awake and watching them.

He sat up. “I wish this never had to change,” he said.

“Everything changes,” replied Roku. “Yesterday we had no dragons. Twenty years ago there was a different Avatar. Five years from now you will be married, and so will I—“

“Stop it. All I want is one bit of contentment.”

“I’m right here, Sozin,” Roku said.

“For now,” Sozin murmured, but he lay back down, his head on Roku’s chest. “I never asked for you to be the Avatar. And I never asked for you to leave.”

“Everything changes,” Roku repeated in a low voice. 

Eventually Sozin fell asleep again, wishing that humans could live as long as dragons and that Roku would always come back.


End file.
